Go Free Yourself

Look, I’m all for representative government and for returning political power to the people. Congressman Peter J. Roskam (R-IL) is apparently all for it, too—in fact, that’s his impetus for launching the “There Oughta Be a Law” initiative, which is designed to collect legislative ideas from Roskam’s constituents on what they believe are the solutions to some of the toughest issues our communities face today.

It could be a decent idea in theory—especially if some enterprising libertarian introduced some sound policies for fiscal responsibility and smaller government, as opposed to more meaningless legislation—but considering other “There Oughta Be a Law” initiatives yielded such stellar results as drug testing for welfare recipients and seat belts for dogs, I’d say it misses the mark in practice.

What idea would you submit to Congressman Roskam?

(Hat Tip: Reason Hit & Run)

As you may remember, I was just in Los Angeles for an excellent grant writing training program through the Grantsmanship Center. I had a great time, learned a lot, saw some sites, etc.

I did not, however, stumble upon the black market of bacon dogs. Unfortunately. That would have been really cool. (As a consolation, though, I am still nearly convinced I saw three members of the Hills cast in Beverly Hills.)

Anyway, the point is—because of stupid government nannying, bacon-wrapped hot dogs have been made taboo. This is from Reason.tv today:

Amid the hustle and bustle of downtown Los Angeles, there exists another world, an underground world of illicit trade in—not drugs or sex—but bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Street vendors may sell you an illegal bacon dog, but hardly anyone will talk about it, for fear of being hassled, shut down or worse. Our camera caught it on tape. One minute bacon dogs are sold in plain view, the next minute cops have confiscated carts, and ordered the dogs dumped into the trash.

Elizabeth Palacios is one of the few vendors willing to speak publicly. “Doing bacon is illegal,” she explains. Problem is customers love bacon, and Palacios says she loses business if she doesn’t give them the bacon they demand. “Bacon is a potentially hazardous food,” says Terrence Powell of the LA County Health Department. Continue selling bacon dogs without county-approved equipment and you risk fines and jail time.

Palacios knows all about that. She spent 45 days in the slammer for selling bacon dogs, and with the lost time from work, fines, and attorney’s fees, she fears she might lose the house that bacon dogs helped buy. She must provide for her family, but remains trapped between government regulations and consumer demand. Customers don’t care about safety codes, says Palacios. “They just want the bacon.”

In “Food Fight: Battle of the Bacon Dogs,” reason.tv host Drew Carey takes a long look at the human cost of trying to prohibit trade in oh-so-tasty treats.

Check out the video here.

And next time you’re in LA, fight the system and look for the bacon dogs. We just want the bacon!

Who’s the biggest piglet in Illinois?

Citizens Against Government Waste and Illinois Policy Institute have teamed up to introduce the 2008 Illinois Piglet Book. Here’s a taste of the bacon:

• $1 million for the Illinois film office in Chicago
• $550,000 for the conservation of pheasants
• $40,000 for the Springfield Figure Skating Club

All in all, the Piglet Book details more than $686 million in state government waste. Check it out here, and watch our friend John Tillman talk about it on Fox News Chicago.

Imagine this, if you will:

In Westlake Falls, Texas, Mayor Mark Urdahl decided not to run for re-election. Simple enough, right? Not so fast—he wasn’t allowed to remove his name from the ballot. His request to do so was denied by the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

So, he took action—and hit the campaign trail for his opponent.

Well, that’s one way to go about it. (Here’s another way.)

If you’re an Australian and you hear someone clunking around your garbage cans in the middle of the night, you better hope you’ve been recycling. Because the man wearing the head lamp on his helmet and digging through your trash isn’t a burglar—it’s the recycling police.

Let’s hope the American nanny state doesn’t find out about this.

Ah, April 15. Today is the day where we send in our tax checks so that the government can provide us with important services like the Catfish Genome Project, asparagus technology, and the management of pig manure.

In honor of today, April 15, check out Dave Barry’s latest column, “How your taxes turn into manure.”

Trust me; you’ll need the laugh.

Happy Monday, readers. Hope you’re not having one of these kind of days:

I’ll be out of town until Friday evening, attending a grant writing training in Los Angeles. (Life is rough, I know.) I’m going to try to keep posting when I’m not in training sessions, but content might be kind of light this week. I’ll definitely be back in full force next Monday, though.

In the meantime, enjoy your week!

The weekend’s here! And over at Nicky Cheese (a fellow blogivist), that means it’s time for a dance party.

Nicky Cheese has started a project in which he will collect songs that speak to liberty and compile them in a mix that’s perfect for a libertarian dance party. Check out the original post—and listen to the first tune!—here.

I haven’t closely followed the news surrounding the housing crisis, but I know the basics.

What I didn’t know, however, was that renters represent 32 percent of American households, or that homes in foreclosure are less than 2 percent of all households, or that the vast majority of mortgages are being paid on time. Yet the Senate still passed a multi-billion dollar housing bailout this week.

FreedomWorks is working to bring some perspective to the debate with a new campaign site, AngryRenter.com. Their goal is to get 100,000 people to sign the petition, which they will then deliver to Capitol Hill. You don’t even have to be a renter to sign the petition, just a citizen unhappy with government bailouts.

Check it out here, and watch their video below:

…because on April 15, the rest of America will empty their wallets.

From Timothy Carney’s (senior reporter for the Evans & Novak Political Report) column in the Washington Examiner yesterday:

For a minority of Americans, however, Tax Day is worth celebrating because taxes — either the dollars you pay or the complexity of complying with the law (or both) — are good news for them. I call them tax bandits, and they fit into four categories: the tax spenders, the tax receivers, the tax parasites and the tax shelters.

Read more about these tax bandits here.

(Hat Tip: Mark Tapscott)